Quite a relaxed day! First thing in the morning was the long dreaded and do-not-want test! But I managed to do quite an okay job though! Thanks to the guidance from Hazel, Aloysius, Jie Xin and Perl! Especially Hazel for the special, funny and obscene acronyms that she came up with to help to memorize. The funny thing that happened during the test was that I actually remembered her obscene acronyms, but I forgot what those words actually stand for! So I had to take a guess and go with my feelings! But it seems that I still managed to do quite an okay job though! Managed to finish the paper in about an hour time, so still had 30 mins to rest and play around. Saw Mr Hamdam taking photos during the last half hour, so all of us who saw his camera started to pose and act as if we were damn stressed doing the paper!

Went out for lunch after that! Wanted to eat fried rice again, but it was too heaty so I went after the porridge instead! Went to dabao 36 dumplings while waiting for the porridge to be ready! Happen to see how some of the stalls prepare their ingredients and I'm like oh my why did I see it. Not really a pleasant sight, especially when its before your lunch!! Anyway managed to dabao 36 dumplings packed into 3 different bowls, so went back to our dorms with my hands full! Ate at the corridor again as usual for fear of the smell lingering in our room! Once it gets in it really lingers around for quite awhile! Went for our next class after that!

The next class was an OIE class, the lecture was conducted by Ms. Grace! Got to learn about the different parts of China, and the capital city in the provinces. Pretty boring lesson if you ask me! Especially when I am using the cheat code whenever she asks a question. I just google for the answer and read it out loud! So yea, its a pretty boring class. Plus the lecturer can't speak english that well. So that made it even worst!! Nearly fell asleep during the few hours I'm inside!

It was so much better after the lesson I guess, went out to kengee to get our breakfast! I got an additional egg tart along with it too! Went to the backstreet again after that as the rest wanted to get their dinner. I was still full from the porridge so I didn't get anything, but I did get a drink though! I label it as the fake orange juice as its just orange syrup with some sugar water. Taste almost like the real orange juice though, just minus the nutrients the real orange juice can provide. Ate my egg tart at the corridor again while the rest ate their dinner. I'm not sure why but I really am just not hungry! Went back to dorm to rest a bit after that!

Settled our performance night stuff soon after! Not bad actually! I quite like the dance and moves! Shall not write more about it and keep it a secret until the actual performance! Heh heh! Gathered back at our dorm at around 8pm to start our group project discussion again! Quite a fruitful discussion this time around. So glad that we managed to finally get all the script, storyline, things we are going to film settled.

Alright! Shall post till here today! tata~

~holychef~

Wake up -> Lecture by China teacher -> Study!

And thats how I passed my 9th day in Wuhan! Lesson started at 9am today, at a new block at the 4th floor, with no lift, and a china teacher teaching us in english. How bad can it get? Well, a lot worst! First off, the classroom didn't have a heater, so I was basically shivering shivering throughout the 3 hours in the classroom! Secondly, the chairs are all spoilt and slanted forward! Meaning everytime I sit on it, I'm actually sliding forward bit by bit! Thirdly, the teacher teach by reading from the slides, which is on the screen, making the lecture super boring! Lastly, there are tons of breaks which can actually be avoided! I mean like, we don't need a 20 minutes break with just 40 minutes into the lesson, and than another 10 minutes break every half an hour to 40 minutes. But we did learn some interesting and valuable things from her lesson! Like where we can go to hunt for xiao long bao, and where the real "orchard road" with all the big brands like LV, Gucci are! We also learnt about the economy, languages, parts of China and the business processes in China too! Including some table manners and eating manners, like how we can't be the first to reach for a dinner if someone invited us. That pretty much explained why China people are ALWAYS LATE!

Went out to the backstreet after class to grab some bites! Walked the entire street, said hello to the usual store owners that we bought from. Heck we don't even need to say anything! The moment they hear Sheila's voice, everyone will look up and say hi to us! Went to buy the fried rice, and the fried rice uncle remembered us too! Oh my tiannnn. I think by the time we go back, the whole street will recognize us and we have to say hi each time we pass by!! Ordered the Lao Gan Ma Huo Tui Ji Dan Chao Fan again! basically its a fried rice with the sauce "Lao Gan Ma" and with ham and egg! Quite cheap though! RMB$5.5 for 1 big bowl!! Can eat till super full one!!

Went back to dorm and eat after that. Had fun eating and chatting with the rest at the corridor! Especially the gossiping part! Went back to our rooms for a bit, studied, rest, roll around, slack, listened to songs until it was time for picking our dance partner for the performance night! My partner is Priya! The two first-aiders dancing together! Went for dinner after that! Ate the same thing again. Don't think I'll ever get tired of it though! Went back and studied a bit more after that. Hope I am able to pass the test tomorrow!!

Shall update till here for today! tata~~

~holychef~

Wake up -> Lecture -> Take video for project -> Rest -> went out to Han Jie -> Went to wrong place -> Shop and walk around for a bit -> Went to the real Han Jie -> Ate macdonalds -> Shop around a bit more -> back to dorm!

And thats how my day went. Lecture and practical was quite okay though. Finished practical 4 and 5 today, quite easy to me actually. Also managed to finish up our chapters for our lecture today! So the next week fews will be quite relaxed already! Just that we have a test on wednesday, friday and next friday. Still quite okay if you ask me, given that most of the things taught have been learned before in one way or another. Stayed at the parade square area for a bit after our class to take the videos for our project! Went quite well though, just not sure if I can pull off the type of movie I had in mind. But its worth a try I guess.

Went to the back street after that to hunt for food! Discovered a nice little souvenir shop that was hidden way behind the street, a part that we have never explored previously. Its seriously a nice and cheap place to get souvenir from! The things there ranges from fake branded bags to umbrellas to ornaments to female lingerie to facial wash and nail paints. So yea, most of the souvenirs can pretty much be purchased there! Went to get the Lao Gan Ma Ji Dan Huo Tui Fried Rice after that, basically its chilli, egg and ham fried rice, and I can tell you, its damn delicious! And its only RMB$5! For a damn big bowl of it! I'm so going to go back there and get another bowl tomorrow! Speaking of tomorrow, it will be the first OIE lesson. I certainly am hoping that I don't fall asleep during the class! Especially when its going to be taught by a Chinese teacher in English! (Oh can you imagine the horror!)

Anyway, we went out to Han Street again after that to shop. But something happened along the way and we ended up at another place instead! It seems that there are two places that can be called Han Street, one is the actual Han Street that we want to visit, the other one is Han Road, another shopping district, but its very far away from our dorm! So Ying Jie, Amanda, Sze Ming and I ended up at Han road first (we really are the always missing four). But it seems that Sheila's cab also ended up at Han road somehow, so we went to shop around for a bit in Han Road. They had a damn big Nike store, as well as other big brands such as Baleno, Zara, Adidas and cache cache. The adidas originals store there actually carried the Vespa shoes that I want! But at a price tag of S$150, I slowly put back the shoe and walked away. Walked around for a bit more, Ying Jie got his bag, we got some mcflurry, and off we went to the real Han street!

I dare say getting a cab in China is really a bitch! Most of the China people have tried to cut our que, and we had to wait around 15-20 minutes before we finally got a cab. So we cab over to the real Han Jie, walked around for a bit before going to find the rest at McDonalds. Ate our dinner there before we went to walk and shop around again! Sze Ming and Amanda got some Muji pens (Okay not some, they both bought around 10 pens each). Went to C&A, H&M, uniqlo, zara. Tried on a lot of stuff but didn't buy though! Main reason is cause they said they don't accept our cards. So thats one of my payment method cut off! :( Oh well, shall go back again next time and try to ask if they accept card or not. Went back to our dorm at around 10+ and reached close to 11! One of the latest time we've ever been back to our dorm.

So yea, thats all for the update today! Sorry people, didn't take any photos today, have to wait till tomorrow to get photos from the others! Tata~!

~holychef~

Hey everyone~ I'm back!!

Day 7! Free and easy day! Basically I didn't do much today, woke up at 9am, went for a jog, came back, slept a bit to 1pm, ordered macdonalds, do my journal and a bit of tutorial, went out for dinner, back and complete my journal, now going to sleep!

That was how my day was basically. Went to jog at the running track introduced to me by Matthew, a British guy whom I met yesterday. Kinda surprising isn't it? Coming to china and making friends with a British guy. The track was quite rustic already, basically like everything else in the university and around it. Part of the track was covered with dirt and the tracks have already opened up. The morning air was still quite chilly when I went to jog with my friends though. First time I had to wear a jacket and track pants to jog - and I still feel cold. Saw some old folks playing golf at the track. Seems like they have a way of finding entertainment for themselves! Went back to my dorm and took a nap after running about 5 rounds! Did my previous journal all the way to dinner time!

Ordered macdonald when I woke up! It was Arthur's treat! Got to try the double cheeseburger with bacon and I can tell you, it is very nice! The delivery was damn fast too! We ordered at like 1.30pm and the food reached at 1.35pm!

We went out for dinner with Mr Daniel Lim and Matthew, at greenery cafe! The only cafe/restaurant that serves western dish at the place we are at. Ordered an american set which consisted of a salad, a soup, a dessert, a drink and a main course. It costs RMB$88, and the main course, which is the Sirloin steak with sausages cost RMB$68 a-la-cart. Which is quite a good deal if you ask me. $4 more for a soup, salad, dessert and a drink! The one thing I hate about them is that they choose to serve all the dishes together and not in order! So I was quite messy when all of the dishes just come at once! Soup, salad, dessert, main course and the drink! Still managed to eat the food though, I ordered my sirloin with medium doneness but it came out medium rare or even rare! Seems like they just seared the outside, and it wasn't really that juicy but what to expect out of such a cheap steak right? The salad and soup was okay, even though I had to change my soup 3 times due to the first 2 soup I ordered being sold out. The dessert was pretty nice too!

Walked back to our dorm after that, got to learn why fish are so expensive in Wuhan, mainly its because Wuhan is far away from the seas and it is hard to transport fishes into the city, thus explaining why most of the fishes that we eat are freshwater fishes and the prices of fishes in the city! Learning something new everyday!!!

Shall update till here for now~ tata~~

~holychef~

Long and busyyyyy day! We had to wake up at like 7am and prepare ourselves for the long day that was awaiting us! It was the city tour day and we went to places such as the West lake, Hubei Provincial museum, Yellow crane tower and Han street, a shopping district! Reporting time was at 8am! Quite early compared to the past few days where our lessons could start at 9.30am or 10am. The day went pretty well though! With the exception of some extra people joining us~

We proceeded on to take a coach to continue our day! First stop was to the West lake! A nice and relaxing lake and park. We can even rent mini boats out the the lake, but we didn't cause our teacher told us not. Walked around, took the videos and photos for our project. Quite a place with tranquility, to be honest, I'm surprised that a place like this even existed in Wuhan due to the face that up to yesterday, where we went, we were almost always greeted with concrete or dead trees or piles of rubber and dirt, there are literally not much greenery that exists in Wuhan. So this place was really an out of the usual experience for my life in Wuhan!







Went over to the Hubei Provincial Museum afterwards, it wasn't so nice with our coach hogging up our time there and we were only left with half an hour to 50 minutes the place. Walk around and took photos and videos for our project again. Didn't manage to venture and visit all the exhibitions due to the lack of time, but it was still an enriching experience though, learning about the Marquis Yi of Zeng, who he was, the artifacts buried with him, the discovery of his tomb. We also learned about the jewellery "Dragon-Phoenix pendent ornament in 16 parts", the bells and also saw the weapons and armors that were buried with him! The design of the museum was quite astounding too. You will never ever get to see this type of design in Singapore due to the land scarce! The history of Marquis Yi of Zeng is quite interesting too, like how he had over 20 women who were his wife and concubine and maids and a dog poisoned and buried together with him. The youngest was only 13! And we could see which one was his favorite through the amount of jewellery that was buried with each of them.


Went for lunch after the museum trip! Had lunch at a hotel, and it just so happened that a couple was having their wedding lunch too! Yes, in Wuhan or maybe the whole of china, they don't do wedding dinner, they have wedding lunch instead of dinner! So we happen to see the bride and bridegroom walking into the hotel. Lunch was quite nice. The food had more variety - namely fish, beef, chicken, beef, chicken in a warp, soup and assorted vegetables! All the meals look about the same if you ask me, just that the way of cooking or the type of vegetables used is different, thats all! We also ate the "dessert" which is actually glutinous rice balls with meat inside! Damn nice, the meat is juicy and tender and the rice is cooked just right!


We moved onto the yellow crane tower after that!~ Had to take a 20 minutes walk up to the tower! Quite a nice and fun walk though, with tons of pavillions along the way! Photo-op anyone? :3 Reached the yellow crane tower pretty fast! The walking and climbing doesn't end there though, we had to climb up a 9-story distance in order to reach the top of the tower!! Met some koreans on the top of the tower and took a photo with them!! Took some photos for videos for our project again!! Left the tower pretty quickly though, due to the lack of time. Overall still quite a nice place to be! Only hated the climbing up part and the rush for time! Seriously, I mean, if we're going for such a rushed tour, we might as well go ourselves! Anyway had a bit of hiccup when we were going to leave the place, 4 of our groupmates went missing! And our teachers had to go look for them, they were found about 10 minutes later though, so its not so bad!

Went to our last destination for the day~ Han street! Its a very pretty street that was designed to look like an europe street if I was correct. A very pretty and nice place, doesn't look at China at all! Really! A lot of nice shops too, their local brands and international brands! Brands like Pull and Bear and H&M also appeared~ Walked and shopped around a bit, saw a shirt that I liked at P&B so I bought it! RMB$99, about S$20. Quite okay I guess. Went to ate Haagen Daz too!! RMB$30 for one scoop in a cup! Comparable to the prices in SG if I'm correct! Some of the stuffs here are not really that much cheaper, especially the branded goods, they're mostly selling at SRP. Saw quite a lot of "interesting sights" too, like people letting their children pee into dustbins or even just peeing by the side of the road! But otherwise, it was a pretty nice experience and place to go if you just want to shop or enjoy a cup of coffee, the streets are pretty clean, definitely cleaner than the other usual streets.

Overall what I feel about china so far is that, when it gets dark, its dark. There's a very small transition period between daylight and night. Probably about 10 minutes! After 10 minutes, its dark. The temperature fluctuates a lot too, I experienced it today when the weather went super hot during the yellow crane tower visit, and the blue sky came out!!! But it suddenly dipped after the Han street visit, making it super cold again! The food there is also quite standard, though I can't deny some of them are really nice! One of the things I noticed is that all of the rice are always served in tubs! Yes, tubs! Not bowl by bowl but tubs! And that Wuhan's food are always damn spicy and hot, I learned from my china friend that its because most of Wuhan people like to eat spicy food! Thats why most of the food are spicy!

Alright~ Shall update to here for today! Will upload more photos when the connections allow me to!

Tata~

~holychef~

Wake up, lecture, free time, went out, came back to have dinner with china students, slack, sleep!

Lecture and practical was quite okay, learned a few more things and covered up to chapter 5! Still haven't touched any of the tutorial though. Went out to shao ping mao (chinese name for the Shopping Mall) to shop and eat. Took a cab there and our driver got lost and the fare ended up to be around RMB $27! It appears that not a lot of students take cabs too! The cabs are known as Da Di in china, and some of the china friends that we talked to have never taken a cab before! Which is quite the surprise.

Anyway, went to shao ping mao to walk walk see see jalan jalan. Its really huge, and there's tons of stores and brands there like Uniqlo, Paul Frank, Nike, Adidas and Vans! There are even 2 arcades down there!!


Went to walk around a bit and settled down at a nice korean bbq restaurant to have some food. Quite a nice little cozy restaurant, bill amounted to about SGD $10 per person! I have to say though, the meat there is DAMN nice. Like, nicer than anything that I've ever tried before for a korean bbq! The price is quite good too, we ordered the set with 4 types of meat, beef, pork, duck and chicken, and they were OH SO DELICIOUS when nicely cooked!!'






We than went over and play at the arcade, RMB $1 for 2 tokens. Didn't went to change tokens first though, we went and played with the bumper cars first though! RMB $10 for the ticket to play, for about 10 minutes of fun! Quite worth it if you ask me, changed tokens after that and played some of the machine games. Played Jubeat but half of the cubes are not working, so I felt kinda cheated =/ Oh well, I didn't bring my maximum tune card too so I can't play when there's the machine!! So walked around and look at the arcade machines that they have, the arcade is really big and carries all sorts of machines! From the newer fishing machines to the older percussion master and to the oldest coin dozer type of machine. Watched as Ying Jie played the drum game and we move off to meet our China friends for dinner!

They were really nice! We were embarrassed about being late though! Was suppose to meet at 6pm but we reach at about 6.30pm! They booked a table of 25, and the table is damn small!! We all had to squeeze like crazy and some even had to stand in order to eat! We ordered like 4-6 dishes, and a soup! There was fish, beef, chicken, and some other vegetables. They really seems to like lady's finger! I'm seeing it in every chinese meal that was provided for us! The fish was really bony too! Learned later that it is a fresh water fish, which seems to be the type of fish that most restaurants or eateries are providing. They don't really care about the wastage of food! Even though we ordered a lot, and had a lot leftover, they were okay with it and still want us to just enjoy ourselves!


I really enjoyed myself today and got a chance to see how fortunate I am to be living in Singapore! Some of the students here have never taken a cab before, and have never ventured out a lot before! They're living conditions are far worse off too! 6-8 people in a room and there are no heater or hot water and the electricity is cut off at 11.30pm! I wonder how they survive, really, they have no way to warm themselves during winter, or cool themselves during summer! Which is so hot and humid!!

Alright! Shall post till here, will update more tomorrow! tata~~!!

~holychef~

Wake up, Class again , lunch , shopping!, back to class, rest awhile, went out for dinner, bought mahjong, group discussion, slack~, sleep!

Seems like a pretty great way to summarize up my day before I start to blog! Covered practical 1 and 2 during the morning class before we decided to end it for the day! Quite an okay class, basically learned how to use the microsoft office project to create tasks and see its ending date, managed to get a bit ahead of the class during it so was able to slack a little bit at the end. Stupid internet was not working so I had to play around with the office project.


Went out for lunch after the class ended, walked to the end of a street to find macdonalds! The macdonald here is really really cheap though!! Bought a big mac for around $3 sgd! Saw that they had this doraemon card on sale, asked about it and it seems that I'll be able to get 5% discount if I flash it when I buy macdonalds, and since its only $1 SGD, and the design is quite nice, I bought it! :3

Went to the shopping center beside macdonalds to walk around and shop around a bit since we had quite a bit of spare time. The prices there are crazy though, its almost all standard retail price! Saw a pair of shoes that I like damn much though! But convert the price to SGD, and it costs almost $140! Too expensive!, so i didn't get it. Walked around a bit more before going back to our class. Went to the supermarket again before that though to grab some tibits and coffee to help us keep awake in class. Also went to the nearby stationary shop to grab something *heh heh*! The shops here really sell everything though, a mama shop can sell things ranging from BB guns to mops to books to stationary to pencil box to chess sets to towels to gloves to tights to card games! Sort of like the mama shop back in Singapore just that the prices here are a lot cheaper! Had a group discussion when we got back to our dorm, everything went well and smooth~ We finally got our plan and script out and know the things we need to film!!



Ate dinner at a halal restaurant here, mainly serve noodles, fried rice, and rice with stuff~! Ordered spring onion beef rice with sauce! Quite tasteless and little beef though. Not that nice, but for the price the food is really cheap! each item cost around RMB $5! Which is = S$1, and the serving is quite huge~


Walked around the area near the shop after the meal and went to the stationary shop again! Kept looking at the BB gun! S$12 and it could be mine! It's a desert eagle replica, made of metal, is golden and have pellets! Seriously looks and feels damn nice, too bad I can't bring it back to SG though! Slacked a bit after that and went back to our dorm. But went to purchase tomorrow's breakfast first! Which was raisin buns!

Went out to the backstreet again after that to eat popiah!!! Kept telling the store owner "see you tomorrow" and it really happens! We went back day after day until nearly everyone in the street knows that we are a group of singaporean students! Reason being that each time we are there, we will talk and laugh damn loudly in english! Went back to dorm after that and played chess~ That pretty much summed up my 4th day in wuhan!


Alright~ Shall update till here today! Will update more tomorrow! Tata~~